Wall Street falls, Caterpillar latest to miss on sales

NEW YORK – Stocks tumbled on Monday as investors worried that slower global growth is hitting corporate sales despite earnings that beat expectations.

Caterpillar's shares seesawed after the heavy equipment maker became the latest to exceed expectations on the bottom line, but fall short of revenue forecasts. The stock fell early, but was most recently up 0.5 percent at $84.31.

Caterpillar also slashed its 2012 forecast for the second time this year, warning the global economy was slowing faster than it had expected.

With this reporting period, investors are looking at both sides of the earnings story, with earnings beating lowered expectations, but revenues coming in weak and profit warnings staying at a high level.

"The majority of earnings so far have been on the weak side and a number of high-profile companies have issued profit warnings, making investors a little more cautious about the outlook for profits in 2013," said Michael Sheldon, chief market strategist at RDM Financial, in Westport, Connecticut.

Of the 123 S&P 500 companies that have reported results, 60.2 percent have topped analysts' expectations for earnings, but 61 percent have missed revenue forecasts, according to Thomson Reuters data.

Third-quarter earnings are expected to fall 2.4 percent from a year ago, according to Thomson Reuters data.

The S&P 500 broke below its 50-day moving average around 1,434, which had proven to be a strong support level. A lasting break below that level could signal further declines.

Mining company Freeport-McMoRan lost 2.4 percent to $40.18 after it said third-quarter profit fell sharply, missing Wall Street's estimates, because of a big drop in gold production in Indonesia.

Shares of Apple Inc shot up 2.8 percent to $626.72 and helped limit the Nasdaq's loss.